Monday, October 15, 2012

Get stuck. Stay in one place your whole life. Always order vanilla
even though the menu is four pages long. Become the type of person who
sends back lattes. Save up your money for a plasma TV instead of a plane
ticket. Talk a lot about things you know nothing about. Have an affair
with someone you don’t even find attractive.

Refuse to forget your ex. Make it impossible for yourself to do
anything without remembering that you used to do it with them. Hug your
knees under the sheets and think about how safe you felt when they held
you at night. Remind yourself daily of how empty you feel. Find new ways
to make yourself sad.

Get drunk all the time. Consider no Saturday night, national holiday
or extended happy hour complete without a vodka-induced breakdown.
Graduate college but keep drinking like you’re still in it. Notice that
cheap beer tastes watery and stale when you drink it alone but drink it
anyway. Look at old Facebook photos wasted and wonder where everyone
went.

Never drink. Never do anything that could potentially be “bad” for
you. Treat your body like the temple it is and say no to carbs, yes to
wheatgrass, go to bed at ten sharp and turn down cake on your birthday.
Take fifteen different dietary supplements. Monitor carefully. Succumb
to nothing. Miss out on everything.

Compare yourself constantly, to everyone. Allow the standards of
image-obsessed, age-obsessed culture to make you feel decrepit at 25.
Scroll through skinny girls on the internet feeling wistful and inadequate.
Pull at the skin on your hipbones, stomach, and underarms in the mirror.
Sigh a lot. Sigh all the time.

Don’t fall in love with anyone or anything. Put an impenetrable wall
between yourself and other people. Add a fire-breathing dragon and eight
yards of barbed wire. Be suspicious of everyone’s motives. Hold grudges
long after you’ve forgotten what for.

Fall in love with everyone and everything. Run after the next best
thing like it’s a bus you’re perpetually late for. Throw your heart into
every other stranger’s hands and be genuinely surprised to be hurt.
Refuse to learn. Refuse to ever learn.